Commerce Has 'Substantially' Reduced Time to Grant Section 232 Exclusion Requests, Raimondo Says
The Commerce Department has reduced its backlog of Section 232 aluminum and steel exclusion requests and is granting decisions more quickly, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said May 6. She said the agency averages about 50 days to grant an exclusion from the date it receives the request.
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“It has had challenges, and for a while there were backlogs,” Raimondo told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies. “I'm very pleased to say the department has improved and currently it has substantially reduced the amount of time that it takes to receive an exclusion.” She added that “there’s continued room for improvement” and she welcomed feedback from lawmakers on how to issue exclusions even more quickly.
Raimondo also said Commerce is heavily focusing on enforcing the agency’s trade tools, including countervailing and antidumping duties. “That's an area that I plan to focus on significantly to make sure that we do the enforcement,” she said. “The rules are only as good as the enforcement, and so we intend to execute on that.” She also said Commerce and the White House have not completed a review of the administration’s China policies. “It’s ongoing,” Raimondo said. “Later on this spring and early summer, I think we'll be continuing to flesh it out.”